From UMC.org:
When Linda Douty’s friend died from a brain tumor, the event sent the lifelong United Methodist on a spiritual spiral as she sought to understand why the prayers of many failed to result in her friend’s healing.
“She was fit, successful, all of the plusses in life you can imagine,” Douty shares about her 50something-year-old friend. “Every prayer group I knew was praying for her. And she died.”
“Wait a minute,” she remembers thinking, “This doesn’t add up to what I’ve been taught.
When she shared her confused anguish with her pastor, he counseled, ““When I feel like you feel right now, I pray, because Jesus prayed.”
At the time, Douty thought the answer was “glib,” she recalls. Thirty years later, Douty, who is a spiritual director in Memphis, Tennessee, doesn’t have a better response.
“It was an unsatisfactory answer at the time,” she shared. “But I call myself a Christian, a follower of Jesus. And what did Jesus do? He prayed in every circumstance. He prayed when he was happy, when he was sad, when he was bewildered, in the Garden of Gethsemane, even on the cross. So whatever this mystery is, Jesus thought it was important. “
The acts of asking for prayer, praying for others, reciting prayers together are built into our faith tradition. Jesus modeled it, we repeat it. But do we understand it? United Methodist spiritual leaders offer help unraveling the complexity of prayer, and, perhaps in doing so, leading us to accept the mystery and seek a deeper connection with God.
Read more at this link.
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